The Trip Adviser: an Essential Tool for Organizing (business) Travel

Have you ever used this trip adviser before? Then you know how valuable this is. Is it your first time? Read this page carefully once, after which you can make use of the itinerary templates, business travel checklist, hotel, airline ticket and rental car booking solutions and other tools in an efficient way. These tools can be useful for vacation, honeymoon travel and other trips as well.

When you are asked to organize a business trip, then find out the following first:

• What is the goal of the trip? Is it business, study, pleasure or mixed?
• What is the destination, or in case there are more destinations, is there an order, or priority which location should be visited first? If more locations have to be visited, then it is wise to plan this in a logical order, in order to save time and money.
• Which people are involved? Who is / are the person(s) who have to travel and who are the persons to be visited?

• Is there a part of the trip which will be organized by others? Good contact with the persons who organize a part of the trip is important, as you need to know what will be organized by whom.
• What is the time frame in which the trip has to take place? Are you bound to certain dates or times, or is there a margin? When having a margin, you might be able to save money whilst searching for super cheap airplane tickets.
• What is the budget, and, in some cases, what is the travel policy of your company?

The next step of the trip adviser is that for the person(s) you have to organize the trip you need to know the following information:

• The exact name, as stated in the passport
• Date and place of birth, as well as home address and marital status of the traveler, as for a visa application these data are necessary. As visa applications contain a lot of specific questions, it is wise to reserve a contact moment with the traveler well in advance.
  
• The validity of the passport. When you scan the passport, and save it at an easy accessible location (or send it to a webmail address), the information is always and everywhere accessible.
• The preference of seats in an airplane: business class or economy class as well as the location of the seats: window or aisle.

• Does this person have special dietary requirements?
• Does the person have a driver's license, and possibly an international driving permit?
• Does this person smoke?
• Does this person take medicines? If these are prescribed, then it's wise to have a letter from the doctor confirming the need for these medicines, in order to prevent problems whilst passing the customs.
• When booking on-line you need often credit card data. It might be useful to have the traveler's credit card data.
• Check whether the traveler is insured. If necessary, take the right action.

Now you can plan the trip. Your trip adviser will help you doing this, with the following steps and tools:

Make an itinerary

An itinerary is an essential part of travel preparation. Find more about making an itinerary, itinerary templates and a sample travel itinerary at the section trip adviser: the itinerary.

Book a flight or plan the journey

Depending on the distance you have to travel, you need to plan the journey. Watch the handy tools in the section road trip planning and the page train journey planner.

In case you need to book an airline ticket, go to the section airline travel.

Book a hotel or travel accommodation

Via your trip adviser you will find a quality on-line hotel booking solution.

Book a rental car or other transport

For easy, quick and personal travel you can compare and book a rental car or arrange business limousine travel, if necessary.

Confirm

Depending on the goal of the trip: confirm the business meetings, or take care of the registration for the conference or other event.

Visa

Check whether a visa is necessary, and if necessary, take care of the application.

Vaccinations

Check whether vaccinations are required, for the locations to be visited and if necessary, take care of organizing these in time.

Gather information

Some more tips from the trip adviser: Gather information about the meetings, conference, as well as the places to visit, including local etiquette, local language, and the contact information of the people, companies and hotels involved. Take care that the traveler has easy access to this information.

Other things which might be important to check:

• Local time at destination
• Voltage and type of power plug which is used at destination
• Local currency, including exchange rate
• Does the traveler have a credit card and can it be used in the country of destination?
• The amount of luggage which can be taken
• Goods to declare at the customs, and items which cannot cross the border.
• Use a contour pillow and tips for exercises to keep fit during travel
• Other handy accessories for traveling
• What to wear when traveling

Worldwide travel destinations

Above you have found a lot of information about organizing travel. But the list is not complete, without giving you information on specific worldwide travel destinations.

Now you see what this trip adviser can do for you. Well begun is half done!

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